


In pursuit of William

by dutchbuffy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Love, Watchers' Council (BtVS)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:37:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11148573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchbuffy/pseuds/dutchbuffy
Summary: Lydia Chalmers, member of the Council, goes to great lengths to get a personal interview with William the Bloody. Very up close and personal. After all, she has written her thesis on him...





	1. Fieldwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: during Checkpoint, s5

When we were all leaving his crypt after the interview, I managed to leave last and left a specially modified questionnaire behind, slipping it next to one of the urns. I didn’t dare look back to check if he’d spotted it, fearing his possible thrall and his predatory eyes, but the back of my neck tingled and I just knew he’d find it! What he would do with it was quite another matter, of course. But I couldn’t resist. Finally meeting the subject of my thesis, and then not try to interview him? Not an option.  
   
I sat in my horrible room (the council being too cheap to pay for a good motel for us flunkies), and thought of sneaking back to the crypt. Would I dare? I took off my sensible pumps and started unpinning my hair. Would it be so bad an ending, I wondered? Since my ill-advised affair with Dr. Fliesning had ended, I’d been feeling antsy and unsettled. Was this all life had to offer me? A job at the stuffy council, and a succession of tweedy council lovers, or a staid council marriage (again, tweed, and snotty noses and nappies as well)?  
   
There was a knock on the door. My stomach slammed into my throat and I had to try twice before I’d risen up from the too-soft bed. Could it be him? Oh God. I hadn’t thought this through carefully enough. Could he get into my room without an invitation? What was the lowdown on rented rooms? Surely not?  
   
On my stockinged feet, I went to the door and opened it a crack. I slammed it shut again immediately. It was him. He was standing there, slouched and smiling, dressed in a very sexy black leather duster, cigarette smoke slowly rising around him. My heart pounded, my legs shook, and the thought that he could probably detect this through the flimsy motel door made me even more afraid.  
   
Come on, Lydia, I said to myself. You’ve started this, you’d never forgive yourself if you passed up this opportunity. Your mother and sister can fend for themselves. You owe it to yourself!  
   
On that note, I opened the door again. William the Bloody looked as if he hadn’t moved in the minutes I’d been dithering behind the door.  
   
“Good evening, love,” he said quite normally in that sexy London voice of his. “Can I come in? I thought we’d discuss this?” and he held up the questionnaire sheets.  
   
I had to swallow several times before I could get the words out. “Come in, William,” I said.  
   
He stepped in, not respecting my body space as a gentleman would, but brushing past me far too close, smiling into my eyes as he did that. Oh God. The fearful scenarios in the back of my mind changed from evisceration and exsanguination to very different possibilities. Oh God.  
   
“I go by the moniker of ‘Spike’ these days,” he said.  
   
“Of course,” I stammered. “Spike. I’ll use Spike from now on.”  
   
I could not resist a question. “Railroad spikes? There was a rumor about you and railroad spikes?”  
   
He grinned at me, a dangerous predator’s grin, which made me turn into pudding. He lit another cigarette, unhurriedly, and started pacing up and down the room, like a tiger in a Zoo. Only he was in no way constrained of course.  
   
“I’ll make you a deal," he said. “I answer your questions, and you answer mine. How about that?”  
   
“Alright,” I said, quite cool and collected really, “what kind of information are you after? I can’t give away classified council information, you must understand that.”  
   
He looked at me with those blue, penetrating eyes and pondered on this for a moment. “Just general stuff, “ he said, apparently not wanting to give away his own purpose. “Probably not really secret. Why the bloody council is here, what people they brought, that kind of thing.”  
   
I offered him a simpler deal. “Why don’t you ask a question, I’ll see if I can answer it, and if I can, you answer the questions on the form.”  
   
“Fair enough.”  
   
I sat down on the edge of the bed, and motioned him into the one chair the room boasted. He threw off the duster, and sat down in the wide-legged, sprawled way that kind of man always seems to have. He had very nice muscled arms, and also when he adjusted his jeans my eyes involuntarily went to the crotch of his jeans. Of course, the bastard noticed, and waggled his tongue at me in a very disconcerting manner. I couldn’t help but feel I was starting off at a disadvantage.  
   
He started his question abruptly. “What does the council want here in Sunnydale? Why won’t they just sodding help the Slayer? In their own best bleeding interest, I’d say?”  
   
I have to admit, I waffled on a bit. I didn’t want to tell him I wasn’t quite clear on that myself. But I knew it would have to do with politics and power, the only thing, in my opinion, that the man Travers is interested in. But I might have known I couldn’t put one over on him. Before I could register that he’d moved, he was sitting on his knees in front of me, these big hands of his splayed on my legs! They weren’t warm, as a human man’s would have been, and which probably signified he hadn’t yet fed that night, but they definitely had an effect on me. I froze, and I must have looked like a frightened rabbit, I could feel my mouth hanging slightly open. He slowly slid his hands upwards over my stockings, and I couldn’t move, I simply let the most electrifying sensations I’d ever felt in my life wash over me. I got goose bumps all over my body, and every muscle I had tightened, I could feel my nipples standing up, the hair on my neck…I thought of myself as quite an experienced woman, having had two lovers, after all — Cyril and dr. Fliesning. But I had certainly never felt anything like this.  
   
Spike kept sliding his hands over my legs ever so slowly, creeping under my skirt. “Well,” he rumbled in that voice that was reaching deep into my womb, “you’ll tell me the truth now, miss…?”  
   
“Ch-chalmers, “ I stuttered, shudders racking though my belly. This was going very wrong very fast. Still, I didn’t even try to resist any more. I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much, but seemed to satisfy him. He with drew his hands. I gasped. I’m still ashamed of it, but I whimpered, yes, I actually whimpered, ”Please…” and he put them back with a triumphant, arrogant smile. I wanted to smack it off his face, but here were other things I wanted more. Looking back on it, it’s all so obvious and humiliating, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks seducing the academic spinster, but at that moment it was both frightening and exhilarating. I never knew that fear would turn me on…  
   
With trembling hands I grabbed the questionnaire. “Your age? At siring and since then?”  
   
“Ah ah ah,” he warned with a charming tilt of his head, “that’s two questions….” He rucked up my skirt. The thick tweed bunched unattractively around my waist, which bothered me, rather.  
   
“Twenty eight”, he said. I thought he looked at little older, but didn’t say. By that time, his thumbs were brushing over my knickers, which were sopping wet, which normally would have made me die with embarrassment, but right now, I didn’t care.  
   
“Okay, what’s your first name? I think we’re on first name terms, don’t you?” Right at that moment, he touched my clitoris for the first time and I climaxed at once. That had never happened to me before, and it was some time before I could speak.  
   
“Lydia,” I gasped.  
   
“What a pretty name,” he said, licking his lips, and I really really wanted to lick them too.  
   
“Lydia, why are you on the team?”  
   
“I’m a vampire expert, and I wrote my thesis on you.”  
   
“How did they know I was in Sunnydale?”  
   
I might be hard on my way to a second orgasm, but my brain didn’t stop working. “That’s two questions. My turn!”  
   
He inclined his head politely. He was such an odd mix of punk and gentleman. “Age since siring? Hundred and twenty years, almost exactly.”  
   
I gasped again, this time from triumph. A new fact, which contradicted everything the council purported to know about him! Definitely a monograph. This was at least as good as the orgasm. Victorian origins, younger than we thought. Fascinating.  
   
“Mr. Giles sends in reports, and he wrote you had returned to Sunnydale again.”  
   
He was now peeling off my stockings and knickers, sending thrills and shivers through my legs. He looked up at me, pausing for a moment, and asked his next question.  
   
“Is there an expert for every member of the Slayer’s gang?”  
   
I nodded. “Well? “he prodded. “Name one!”  
   
“Mr. Jhabwala is our witchcraft expert.”  
   
“Uh-huh. That accounts for Red and Glinda.” He must mean Miss Rosenberg, who is indeed redheaded, though not naturally so, and Miss Maclay. Quite human and endearing, having pet names for them. Just how closely was this vampire associated with Miss Summers and her followers? He didn’t know that he gave me valuable information with every word that he spoke, every gesture he made. To a trained and clinical eye, nothing is without value.  
   
He took off my skirt, tearing at the zipper impatiently. There were red marks on my skin from the elastic in my knickers and stockings. I squirmed as he traced an interested finger over them.  
   
“Don’t vampires get elastic marks on their skin?” I asked, intent upon discovering new information on vampire physiology.  
   
He laughed. “Would that count as one of my questions?” he purred and tore at my silk blouse. That got me really angry. I’d saved up for that blouse! Boring it might be, but it was of very good quality and I’d counted on years of service from it. I slapped his face.  
   
There was a glint in his eye. “This is getting interesting, pet…Like it a bit rough, do you?” and twisted my nipple violently, creasing the blouse horribly in the process. I bucked and moaned, completely at the mercy of my body, that seemed quite excited by violence and fear of death. Learn a new fact about yourself very day in the field, I told myself and also, enjoy the ride, girl, it might be your last.  
   
It was getting really hard to keep track of the question game, but since that was the main purpose for both of us, I managed.  
   
“What supernatural abilities do you have?” I asked. He lifted his head from my breast and considered this a moment. He seemed so transparent, I could almost see him weigh his options.  
   
“Thrall, flight, invisibility…”he said, and started to rip of my bra, which seemed ridiculously easy, even for him, as it was quite a sturdy one. I didn’t like to wobble while working.  
   
I took note of his answer, but I didn’t quite believe him. These abilities are rumored, but not at all reliably documented. Was he bragging?  
   
“What expert was hired for Anya?”  
   
I didn’t understand. Miss Jenkins? For her and the other human member of the gang, Mr. Harris, no special experts had been deemed necessary.  
   
He pushed me down on the bed and knelt between my legs. He was still fully dressed, and I was aching to get my hands on him. He wouldn’t let me, though.  
   
“Who was your sire?”  
   
He licked my neck. While that was sending the most delicious feelings to my womb, it made the fear kick back in as well.  
   
“Drusilla,” he said after a pause.  
   
“She’s been your paramour for most of this century, hasn’t she?”  
   
“What lovely words you use, little Lydia…paramour, concubine, mistress, light o’love…” Little indeed. I stand five eight in my stockings, and he hadn’t seemed that much taller.  
   
The sucking on my neck continued. It would surely leave a mark, I thought as I writhed and moaned and had another orgasm. Thank God I’d brought the maroon turtle neck. I was waiting for the moment his fangs would pierce my neck, but it wasn’t happening so far. I’d been dreading it, of course, but rumors also had it, it was the most wonderful thrilling feeling to be sucked by a vampire ( I did know about suck houses) and I was rather curious, I admit. He started sucking my nipples again. I was almost disappointed, and a little puzzled as well, but then I realized he wanted more information from me, and wasn’t ready to kill me yet.  
   
”Tell me about Glory,“ he demanded. My hands scrabbled of their own volition at his tight black T-shirt. I wanted to feel his skin. He pinched me hard. “Tell me!” He was so male and rough and impatient, I really wanted him to have sex with me. I know, this sounds completely irresponsible and insane, but at that moment, I didn’t give a damn.  
   
I told him what I knew, again, not a lot.  
   
“Tell me about your feeding habits.”  
   
His fingers pushed in my vagina, quite hard, and somehow he must have know to find my G-spot, which my previous lovers had never managed, and I came again. Three orgasms so far, an absolute record for me. I never came when having intercourse with Cyril or Dr. Fliesning, and they were usually quite reluctant to help me in other ways.  
   
“I’m a veal kind of guy,“ he pronounced, enigmatically at first, but then I got it. “I like to find very young girls, drain them so that they’re weak, but still scream when I rape them. After that I kill them of course.”  
   
Hm. This sounded pretty horrific, of course, but it didn’t sound that convincing. “Do you abduct them by force, or use seduction to lure them?”  
   
He looked a bit puzzled at that. “Both, absolutely,” he said.  
   
My insistent frittering at his T-shirt had been successful, for he removed it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What a divine figure! Sculpted like Apollo, not an ounce of fat on him. My hands greedily explored his abdominal muscles, which felt incredibly firm and smooth. So different from, well, frankly, flabby and hairy Britishers.  
   
“Did you look like that when you died, or do you work out? And does working out affect vampire muscles?” I was babbling, and he didn’t answer.  
   
“Undo the belt, pet,” he instructed me. I obeyed, incredibly thrilled at the prospect of seeing a vampire penis. The preternatural biology teacher had never been able to explain satisfactorily just how a dead penis could become engorged, and I was about to experience this at first hand!  
   
“In what ways is the council going to help the Slayer?” The pattern of his questions disturbed me. Why did he want to know all this? Did he wish to help the Slayer, or use the knowledge for the other side?”  
   
“We aren’t,”I said. “Saving the world is her job.”  
   
He savagely backhanded me. I screamed in pain and surprise. Through the pain, my brain frantically kept coming up with reason for his behavior. He seemed loyal to her. Drusilla was not in Sunnydale. Could he be after another Slayer kill? When I opened my eyes, he looked a little different, rubbing his temples. I was giving him a headache?  
   
“Tell me about your present girlfriend,” I managed to gasp out through my split lip. I saw his eyes travel to my mouth and he started to lick off the blood. I tried to kiss him, but he avoided that successfully.  
   
“Harmony? “he rumbled at last. “Not much to tell, irritating dimwitted bint. Threw her out, couldn’t take it anymore.” Aha! No Drusilla anymore! More facts for Lydia.  
   
He took off his trousers and thrust his member in my face. Too bad I only got a moment to check out the vampire penis visually, but it certainly was fully engorged, although quite pale in color. I cannot pretend to be an expert on penis colors, so who knew, pale pink might be as normal as red or purple. It was huge, never saw anything like it, and I found it quite difficult to keep from gagging. Again, I reluctantly admit to having no experience in this act whatsoever. He noticed my discomfort, and with an impatient sigh instructed me on what to do, and that helped. I was even quite getting to enjoy it. I did think he was acting very strangely. I had expected far more violence, but except the one slap, he hadn’t hurt me.  
   
“Do you keep records of the Slayer?” he grunted, thrusting in my mouth.  Why did he keep asking after the Slayer? Anyway, I was in no position to answer him. After a moment, he seemed to realize this as well, and slid his penis out of my mouth. I tried to gather more visual information. His pubic hair was dark brown, he was uncircumcised, and his penis glistened. Must have been me, I supposed. Never looked at Dr. Fliesning so closely, in such bright lighting. He turned me over and pushed my face in the cushions. I guessed this was going to be doggy style. I was getting quite an education.  
   
“Mr. Giles keeps a diary, and he sends copies to the council. I’ve never seen them, they’re classified.” He thrust in me with very little ceremony. Not that I needed any, I was still sopping wet and more than ready for him. I never felt anything like it. I think I’ve said that already, but his evening was simply chock-full of new experiences for me. He was so big, that every thrust in my dripping wet vagina set off a new thrill, and I could not speak at all, just moan.  
   
That’s not what he wanted, of course, so he stopped and slid out of me. He slapped my bottom lightly, very close to my vagina, and again, new sensations. Very good ones.  
   
“Tell me what you do know about the Slayer.”  
   
“No,“ I panted. “My turn. How many vampires have you sired.”  
   
“None. Tell me about the Slayer!”  
   
“She’s the one girl in all the world, the Chosen one, to stand alone against the forces of darkness…” I babbled.  
   
He was hurting me a little, but in a good way. Still not biting me though.  
   
“No, you stupid bint,” he grated, “not the drivel I know already, other stuff, personal stuff about this Slayer.”  
   
I had been right. There was something going on with the Slayer. Should I use this opportunity to check the rumors about his killing of the two other Slayers? No, these had been pretty well documented.  
   
“Um,” I said, “like the rumor she was romantically involved with a vampire?”  
   
He slapped me again, hard now. He uttered a strangled cry right after, and for a moment I wondered If he had come, but I couldn’t turn my head around, as he had my neck in an iron grip. Then I got it. The vampire in question was Angelus, who of course had been associated with both Drusilla and William the Bloody for decades. What was he feeling? Jealousy at Angelus’ success with the Slayer?  
   
“Are you trying to emulate Angelus by moving in on the Slayer?” I asked.  
   
He made a peculiar noise. At first, I thought it was anger, but then I realized he was laughing. He turned me over and looked at me with something of respect. I think.  
   
“No flies on you, eh pet? Keep on gathering the information for your treatise or what not? Aren’t you in fear for your life anymore?”  
   
I said nothing, as seemed wisest. He looked at me for a bit.  
   
“I don’t think you know all that much about the Slayer,” he said at last. “Let’s call it a day.”  
   
He started to move off the bed. Without any dignity at all I lunged for his penis and begged him to fuck me (yes, I actually used that word, not like me at all!)  
   
“All right, then, “ he said after a few moments. He pushed up my legs and thrust in again, very hard. Still, with his vampire strength, he must have held back, because he did not hurt me. There followed a few minutes of screaming and delirium for me, as I got the best rogering of my life so far (which isn’t saying that much, I admit). I became too exhausted to scream anymore and finally he shut his eyes, and came with a roar. I must have passed out, for when I woke up it was almost daylight and he was gone.  
   
I was alive and unbitten! I lay still for a few moments savoring all kinds of sensations. Alive, unbitten, only slightly sore after unimaginably amazing sex, brimming with facts and factoids…I got to work in a hurry. I emptied a bottle of paracetamol and took a semen sample as best as I could. I wrote down everything I could think of, his words, his manner, his actions. Too bad I could not draw. I crawled over the floor to find all pieces of my clothing and came upon the questionnaire. He’d filled in quite a bit of it in an ornate old-fashioned handwriting. I was beside myself with joy. A handwriting sample! Answers! The fact alone that he could read and write! I was in academic heaven. The lingering feeling between my legs didn’t hurt either.  
   
I went to the breakfast nook and ate everything in sight. This had been the best night of my life. Academic fame surely was mine. And also, I vowed, no more tweedy men for Lydia. I didn’t quite know where to find them, but surely there must be ways to satisfy my newfound appetites! Men who would not fuck a woman in two minutes flat with the lights out, mumble ‘sorry dear’ and start snoring.  
   
I’d show these council prats who’d been keeping me back, and the conceited field men as well, who thought they were James Bond if they’d sighted a fledgling. I’d survived a close encounter of the unspecified kind with a Master vampire, I’d found out oodles of original material. The only drawback was that I’d have to conceal the manner of discovery. They didn’t need to know about my little epiphany.


	2. Fieldwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia has not been able to forget her interview with a vampire.
> 
> Timeline: S6, autumn 2001, during Bargaining and after Gone

“Will you, Lydia Frances Chalmers, have this man as your lawful wedded husband, to live together in the estate of matrimony? Will you love him, honour him, comfort him, and keep him in sickness and in health; forsaking all others, be true to him as long as you both shall live?  
“I will.”  
   
“Do you, William…”  
   
At that point, I always woke up. Even in dreams, my mind insisted on accuracy, and unfortunately, I still hadn’t been able to discover his last name. Even assuming he’d been turned in London, on the date he’d mentioned in our ‘interview’, there was no way I could sift him out of the thousands of Williams born around the correct date.  
   
I rose, bathed, and put on my Council ‘disguise’. That’s how I thought these days about my tweed suit, neat blouse and pumps, and my schoolmistressy hairstyle. Once I’d thought I looked professional and smart, every inch the career woman, but as so many things in my life, that had never been the same after the one fateful night in Sunnydale. I smoothed on make-up, with extra care for the suck marks. It wouldn’t do to let on to the Council stuffed shirts about my, um , alternative lifestyle. Fortunately, they were not the kind of people who questioned the wearing of turtlenecks and prissy little shawls, even in the hottest weather – which would happen about twice in my lifetime.  
   
Back in my bedroom, as I was putting in my pearl studs, there was a faint scrabbling at the door. With a sigh, I opened it. Sanjev, my resident vampire, stood in the door opening, knowing very well he would never be invited in, and begged me for a little drink in his whiny, pathetic voice. For the thousandth time I wondered why I’d ever taken the little wimp in. Surely the last bit of loyalty to my deceased friend had long been paid off? Sanjev’s posture was abject and humble, waiting patiently for me to offer my arm.  
   
“Alright, then, “ I said, “ A few sips, no more. I need my strength for work today.”  
   
Even Sanjev, disgusting little creep that he has become, can give quite a thrill if you’re not an utter junkie. I’d so far managed to steer clear of that dangerous edge, though.  
   
“No customers last night, Sanjie?”  
   
He shook his head, his fangs clamped to my inside elbow. You have to look at least a little bit appetizing if you want to lure the sucky crowd, and he no longer seems to care. I’m sure he would be long dead if I hadn’t taken him in (well…dust, of course), and I no longer knew why I had done so. Every trace of Sarita’s sweet little brother had been erased over the past half year. Apart from the usual irritation of living with someone uncongenial, there was the fact that his deterioration denied every theory of personality retention in vampires, which I’d been staking my academic reputation on.  
   
I shook him off abruptly and headed for the kitchen. My own behaviour towards him worries me also. The less human he becomes, the more I treat him like an annoying pet. And if you treat someone badly, what chance do they have to become better? I forced myself to eat a hearty breakfast. My work, the strenuous research I do in my off hours, and the occasional sucking really taxes my strength. Even so I’ve kept up my exercise, don’t smoke, don't drink, all for the cause.  
   
My goal today was to enter the secret archives of the council once again, and try to find more material on vampires in general and William the Bloody in particular. Because of the clandestine nature of my visit, I had no access to the indexes, which were kept by some obscure mediaeval principle. This meant that the alphabet, and subject matter, which would lead you to the right stuff in every normal library, was no help here at all. So all I could do was sneak in, photograph everything I could lay my hands on, study the layout at home and get back again. I’d discovered a Necronomicon (Abdul AlHazred), worth millions to the right people, but not what I was after.  
   
I entered my office and set up my false work for the day. As soon as I had put in a satisfactory fake outline on my computer, I rerouted my calls, and snuck out the back stairways to the library building. I struck lucky for once. The diaries of the London watcher during the late seventies and early eighties of the nineteenth century, when a nearly certain sojourn of the Angelus-Darla gang had been visited on London. Priceless stuff. The volumes were small enough that I could carry three of them in my voluminous purse.  
   
I put them away in my drawer, and decided to reward myself with some caffeine. And who did I run into but Mr. Rupert Giles! I had to reintroduce myself, something which happens to me often, and which deeply disappointed me in this man. He was more attractive than I remembered, even if getting a little heavier around the middle. I reminded him again whom I had written my thesis on, and asked him to give me some of his time to interview him on William the Bloody, who still resided in Sunnydale as far as we knew. He granted me that with very little hesitation, and we set a date for the same evening.  
   
It was agony to do my regular stuffy kind of work all day, adding data on vampire sightings in our database. One more reason to withhold my loyalty from the council! Letting a Ph. D. do data entry work, just because she is a woman. They’d be sorry one day!  
   
After work, I made a little detour to Camden Market to see if the nest of vampires I’d spotted there last weekend was still in residence. The moment I came out of the underground I spotted the first one, mingling unnoticed among the crowds of stallholders and shoppers on their way home. I couldn’t resist following him. He snuck down the stairs and jumped on a train. I kept on his tail, as they say in the U.S. He got off at Earl’s Court, and took the stairs, which were not open to the public, as the lifts were working for a change. These are really endless and pretty gloomy, so I hesitated before following him. I ventured down a few dozen steps, but the underground smell wafting up – a peculiar mixture of diesel, coal, and mummified mice – and the deepening gloom made me hesitate. I could hear no more footsteps when I stood there listening, and knowing vamp hearing is much better than mine, not to mention their strength and speed, I decided to call it a day. This was too risky to do solo. He might easily have spotted me. I hurried home to my appointment with Mr. Giles.  
   
He was waiting for me already, quite impatiently I noticed. I watched him cross the threshold uninvited (you get quite paranoid when working with vampires) and offered him a cup of tea. He graciously accepted and I showed him in the living room. He made a startled move backwards when he spotted the statue.  
   
“Um, what a wonderful piece of art you have there, Miss Chalmers. Quite large for living room, though?”  
   
I patted the Apollo’s plaster bum affectionately. “It came this size, and it reminds me of a friend, though not in all particulars.”  
   
He looked a bit mystified. I put him in the visitor’s chair, so he needn't stare at the Apollo continually. I have noticed it tends to put male visitors out, can’t imagine why. The abs are smashing of course, but it’s really not well endowed or anything.  
   
I made tea and settled myself with a notebook in my lap.  
   
“Are you alright, Mr. Giles? You look a little distracted?” A British euphemism for bloody awful, you know.  
   
“It’s somewhat unsettling, to say the least, to leave a place where one has lived for five years.” He looked into his tea.  
   
Enough with the preliminaries. It wasn’t his personal feelings I was interested in.  
   
“I understand the vampire William the Bloody is still a resident of Sunnydale?”  
   
He looked startled, and, yes, amused as well. “William the …? Yes, indeed. Spike.”  
   
“Could you tell me a little more of your association with him?” I prodded gently. I thought of throwing in the Scotch, as he didn’t seem inclined to chat. I should perhaps have taken him into the pub, instead of to my home. No British man is quite at easy in the home of a woman he isn’t related or married to.  
   
“Spike? Ha. Were you aware of his chipped state? Made him an occasionally useful tool, you know. And since…since the defeat of the Hell god Glory he’s been of some assistance in our usual patrol. He baby-sits the Slayer’s sister as well, and….”  
   
My mind boggled. Babysitting? My dark hero babysitting? He must be joking. I said as much. He shook himself a little and with a sort of pinched smile admitted he’d been joking. He and the Slayer kept a professional wary eye on the vampire, who seemed harmless, and used him for muscle.  
   
“Does he have relations with female vamps?”  
   
Mr. Giles stared at me, gob smacked. Again. “Relations with what? Why the hell would I care? As long as he doesn’t kill he can do anything he pleases to the lady vamps or any demons of whatever sex! Why ask?”  
   
I thought he protesteth too much. Why? I’ve become quite an experienced interviewer, and one gets to notice these little discrepancies between words and delivery. Something there.  
   
“I imagine you are aware of the theory I defend in my thesis? That there is significant personality retention in vampires? All known data on Mr. Bloody indicate that he retains many human traits, which make him an interesting subject. There are not that many Master Vampires we have actual continuous contact with.”  
   
“I still don’t see why…” he began. “As far as we know vampires are promiscuous and omni sexual. What would it add to know that Spike is too?”  
   
I was quite sure William was no such thing, but managed to control the sharp retort that sprung to my lips.  
   
“Perhaps, “ I ventured, “ You could fill in a questionnaire on the subject? Since you have so much experience with him? I myself only interviewed him once, and…”  
   
He guffawed. “ Interviewed? Yes, he mentioned that. You asked him six questions, with three crosses and a crossbow trained on him. Quite amused him.”  
   
It gave me an incredible thrill to hear my Spike talked about as a human being, instead of a monster and a thing. I knew I was right!  
   
“Um, no, “ I said, ready to trust him a little further. “He visited me in my motel room, and was willing to answer several more questions. Perhaps you can confirm some of the answers?”  
   
His eyebrows rose. “He visited you? Most peculiar. And you invited a vampire in?  Were you feeling suicidal or what?”  
   
“He was quite…gentlemanly,” I said stiffly. He didn’t seem to have quite the kind of insights I was looking for. And apparently, William had never mentioned our little talk. Either he was a gentleman, or it didn’t mean a lot to him.  
   
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, I got out my questionnaire. Mr. Giles could confirm many of the facts Spike himself had given me, and add a few more. The initial reason for his coming to Sunnydale had been Drusilla’s weakness; Angelus had gained a soul and then lost it again, apparently. It all ran together in apocalypse after apocalypse, and I wrote it down as fast as I could, to make sense of later. Still, I got a feeling of omissions in his story of those last years.  
   
Somehow, Spike had gotten a ‘chip’ implanted in his head, an electronic device that prevented him from harming humans – that was news to me. I realized I hadn’t been in as much danger as I thought in the motel, and that the few times he’d hurt me he’d gotten hurt himself. My poor noble warrior! Still, that wouldn’t keep him from creating havoc by proxy, but somehow he’d stopped with that. Mr. Giles was curiously hesitant as to why. He skirted around the question, tried to divert me off that topic, and it only made me more curious. I had even gotten out my best scotch and was about to pour us a drink, when the phone rang.  
   
I answered. It was Miss Rosenberg, asking for Mr. Giles. How had she managed to trace him here? I handed the phone to him, and actually saw him blanch after a few seconds, and then colour up again in a brick red flush. He had to sit down and his hands shook. He almost looked as if he was going to cry. I started liking him again, and gave him the scotch anyway, although all hopes of further pumping had fled. He tossed it down and said in a brittle voice that he really had to leave, and would give me a call soon. When he passed my statue again he threw a very thorough look at the face, then at me again, but obviously decided to give it a miss.  
   
My heart pounded in my breast. Could he possible have noticed the likeness? Having him in my house had been a mistake. Definitely the pub next time. No use him latching on to notions on his own, prematurely. I’d tell him about my real purpose when he got back.  
   
********  
   
Who’d have thought I’d have had to wait half a year to see Rupert Giles again? Mr. Travers had been the one to tell me he’d gone back to Sunnydale, called back for an emergency he said. Mr. Travers, as usual, chose the most unsuitable moment to tell me this, as I was having a spat with Aubrey Wyndham-Price, in front of my room, and so couldn’t really press him for more details. I’d made the mistake of going out with the Dishonourable Aubrey once, and after that I almost could appreciate Wesley, his unfortunate younger brother. He always was a prissy little swot, but at least sincere, something that can’t be said for the oily elder brother. Clammy, groping hands, and an ego that didn’t match the rest of his physique.  
   
Then, of course, I ran into Mr. Giles at a moment I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I was done up for an evening out with my new friends, in leather and black corset, heavy make-up, breast pushed up to here and almost no skirt. The New Lydia. Needless to say, he didn’t recognize me, again, but this time I forgave him more readily, for he was looking quite different himself. Jeans, faded T-shirt, earring…He seemed fairly pissed and exuded an indefinable kind of moody danger. I know myself well enough to realize that’s why I stepped up to him. I thought pumping him might gain me more than the thrills my so-called friends had to offer me that night. I could go to a vamp-brothel any time, after all.  
   
Rupert Giles was nothing if not direct when he finally recognized me. “For God’s sake, girl, what are you up to? Having a party with bleeding vampire groupies or what?”  
   
“All for the sake of research, Mr. Giles, “I retorted huffily. “This gets me a lot of first-hand experience.”  
   
He stared hard at the suck-marks in my neck, which were left uncovered for this outing.” I can see that,” he said sharply. “Don’t tell me you were a groupie last year in Sunnydale? You seem to have changed quite a bit since then!”  
   
I wasn’t used to being challenged that directly. Points for perspicacity. “I suppose I have,“ I admitted. “I had what you might call a life-changing experience, and it made me evaluate a lot of things I took for granted.”  
   
“Like what? A car accident? A nearly fatal encounter with a vampire?”  
   
“Something like the latter,” I said cautiously.  
   
We sat down in the sleazy pub he’d been going into, full of marihuana smoke and ancient rock music. He ordered us both a pint of lager.  
   
“Your thesis was quite interesting,” he said abruptly after he’d drank down half his pint. “In my association with vampires I’ve recently started to think along the same lines. However, I can only find two good examples of personality retention. All the others aren’t worth thinking about. The one was a souled vampire, Angel, the former Angelus; the other the chipped vampire Spike.”  
   
I felt a little thrill when His name was mentioned. “I wish I could read your Watcher’s diaries, Mr. Giles! Your day-to-day observations must contain such fascinating material on these vampires! Years of association with them, you are so lucky.”  
   
“Call me Rupert, love,” he said. “Lucky? Angelus killed someone very dear to me, when he temporarily lost his soul. I didn’t count myself lucky then!”  
   
“And Spike? Would you say he might have the same personality now as when he was human?”  
   
“I realize, my dear girl, that I’m a little older than you, but I certainly wasn’t around when William was turned!”  Was he flirting?  
   
“I know that,” I said, placating him. “But does he still have Victorian personality traits? Speech patterns?”  
   
He burst out laughing. “Hardly! He talks like an irritating young North London punk, as you must have heard. I couldn’t say if he always was a London boy, he’s so contemporary in everything. Watches telly, has seen movies, eats and drinks like a human being, smokes…”  
   
This was manna to my ears. It confirmed what I was theorizing.  
   
“I think he must have quite some education, as well,” Rupert was saying. “He once quoted Shakespeare at me, you know. Speaks a lot of demonic languages, knows a bit about magic…”  
   
I latched onto Shakespeare. “What level of education? Mid-level? University?”  
   
Rupert shrugged. “Couldn’t say. What are you going to do? Search entrance lists for schools and universities for Williams?” he said mockingly.  
   
Yes. That was exactly what I was planning. I could see he was unresponsive and kept it to myself.  
   
“Does he ever talk about his liaison with Drusilla? Reports have it that he was with her for more than a century?”  
   
He flinched. “Well, indeed, Drusilla visited Sunnydale last year. Had a bad influence on Spike. However, he has since proved a valuable ally. In spite of his unhealthy obsession with….” He trailed off, clearly sorry about what he’d almost let slip. I remembered my feelings about something off in our talk in September.  
   
I circled the subject and tried another angle. “Where would you say his loyalties lie?”  
   
“To the Slayer, unquestionably. He saved her life, recently, and ours too, many times.” In the motel room, Spike had been trying to get me to reveal information about the Slayer. At the time, I’d thought it was to harm her, and said as little as I could under the circumstances. Now what Rupert said might indicate he’d been trying to help or protect her?  
   
“Why would he be loyal to the Slayer?” I asked, quite tersely. I was starting to feel an irrational jealousy for the uneducated bossy little thing.  
   
Rupert looked at me for a while but said nothing at first. When he answered it seemed obvious he was thinking out loud. Or making it up?  
   
“Since his chip he’s been feeling a lack of purpose, I suppose. His raison d’être as a vampire has been taken away; he subsists on pig’s blood instead of human. I suppose he felt a need for a cause. He has a craving for violence that serves us well in our fights with evil.”  
   
“So, he joined the team to serve the forces of good? On purpose? How unusual for a vampire!”  Inside I was bursting with pride. How like him, to defeat all expectations and go where no vampire has gone before!  
   
“What do you think, Rupert? If a person was good, or even noble, wouldn’t they still be that after they were vamped?”  
   
“Never seen any evidence of that! “ he said.  
   
“But we might not see this, you know. Most people are mediocre, not good or evil, simply not much of anything. The same might hold for them when vampires. The law of averages dictates that very few extraordinary people would be vamped, because there aren’t many to begin with.”  
   
“I suppose.”  
   
“I’ve talked to a lot of vampires about their former existence. Some of them want it back, usually the happy or successful ones, others love the vampire existence. My guess is they were losers in real life.”  
   
“Fascinating, but hard to prove, I’d say.”  
   
I told him some of it. “I’m following individual vampires, getting to know them. Trying to discover if there are patterns in their behaviour, looking for personality retention and change over time. Of course I’ve only just started, so my research population is fairly small.  
   
“You do this in their wild state? So to speak?”  
   
“I try. Too bad I can’t catch them and put a little tube around their legs, tag them like pigeons, but I do try to mark them. Describe nests, fledgling, family lines…Research on vampires so far has been so unscientific, the only thing they wanted to know is what kills them and how quick!”  
   
“You should hook up with the Initiative, they’d probably have the resources to mark hundreds of vampires, shoot chips in their backs…” Rupert said idly, not really meaning it.  
   
I could have gone on for hours on my subject, but I could see he wasn’t really listening, but sinking away into alcoholic stupor, and staring at my cleavage fixedly. I happen to be quite proud of my breasts, and am not above flaunting them for the sake of research, but this behaviour from a fellow academic irked me. I decided to rejoin my friends.  
   
Half an hour later I lay reclined upon the filthy velvet cushions in one of the suck-house’s private rooms, being fucked and sucked simultaneously by a vampire, feeling both incredible pleasure and deep disappointment. I’d even tried two vampires at a time, but nothing had ever rivalled my experience in Sunnydale yet. William the Bloody had changed my life forever, and probably didn’t even remember me. If I closed my eyes I could try imagining it was him doing me, but smell, sound and feel all gainsaid it and it was too hard to sustain the fantasy. I did better at that at home, alone.  
   
******  
   
The next morning I was neither professionally dressed nor dressed up in the Time Out sense; in short, I was still lolling on the sofa in my dressing gown, when the doorbell rang. I had progressed so far in my carefulness that I put on a chain before opening it, like a heroine in an American thriller. It was Mr. Giles; truly Mr. Giles, not Rupert, in a proper tweed suit and tie. I opened up for him, feeling quite caught out in my slovenly getup.  
   
The last thing I expected were the two thickset henchmen that followed him in, and the tall woman in a hippie chic kind of dress. I must have gaped, because Mr. Giles took me by the arm and steered me into the kitchen.  
   
“Listen, my dear girl,“ he said quietly but forcefully, “I was quite shocked by what I saw last night. I really think you could do a little vacation from your research. Griselda over there will take you in for a couple of weeks and help you overcome any unfortunate tendencies you might have picked up.”  
   
I was livid. Of all the patronizing, high-handed…  
   
“No! “ I cried, wrenching myself loose. “You can’t do that! When I come back they’ll all be new vampires , and I won’t know who sired them and what killed them...please, Rupert, my research must continue!”  
   
“I believe you are overwrought. I don’t know what happened to you, and perhaps I don’t wish to know, but you seem somehow cast loose from those solid moorings I believe you had. A strong council family, a good upbringing should give you strength to return to what you once were.”  
   
I started to sob and beg, although my rational mind told me that it was the last thing that would work on a man. They think ‘hysterical woman’ and shut themselves off to anything you might have to say.  
   
To no avail. And three days later, there I was in Devon, in Griselda’s little retreat, scrubbed clean, no alcohol, no caffeine, no telly, no reading. I could meditate, do little jobs around the estate or take brisk walks. What fun. How terribly healthy.  
   
They had very odd ideas about clothes as well. No more naughty underwear for Lydia underneath staid tweeds. Can you imagine, no buttons, no zippers, no bra-fastenings, and no elastic? Drawstrings were about the only tings permitted. I mentioned Velcro once, but only got huffy stares. So we all flopped and wobbled around in our sack-like dresses of unbleached linen and hand-dyed wool. I longed for Marks and Sparks like never before.  
   
There probably was some non-trivial reason for this in Wiccan lore, but I couldn’t be bothered. What would it be, knots and bindings interrupting the natural flow of energy or something? Never had any talent for or interest in witchcraft, it was always the supernatural creatures for me. Werewolves, vampires, dragons, giant snakes…  
   
However, albeit reluctantly, I did start to feel different after a few weeks, god knows why. Mostly, I think, the sensible woman-to-woman talks I had with Griselda and Imogen. They might have been witches, I have no idea, but anyway they were wonderful motherly women, with a wealth of worldly experience, and completely unshockable. They needed to be, because I came clean about everything that I had felt and done over the past year. They were extremely interested in my Sunnydale experience. It was difficult for them to understand what exactly made that experience with Spike so pivotal. Was it the sex? Had it been a deliberate mindfuck? I couldn’t see how he might have benefited from it, and neither could they, but to a Master Vampire it might be sheer habit to enthral a human being.  
   
The consensus they reached was a very simple and humiliating one. In that one half hour, I had become completely enthralled by the pretty vampire. I had then proceeded to redirect my work and goal in life around that one assumption: that because I loved him, he must be good. Ergo, all vampires must have the potential for good. I still thought that researching my hypothesis was a very worthwhile goal, but I could now see that I had gone about it in a very irresponsible manner. My hypothesis was solid, and I should certainly go on working at it, but not alone.  
   
Mr. Giles came to visit me. He became Rupert to me again. We took long walks around the countryside, and even took me to a pub. I talked to him about the thrall. Even now that I had identified it intellectually, I could still feel it. He seemed quite surprised by my tale; apparently, in his association with William there had never been evidence of thrall. But then, he didn’t know William was capable of flying either! He tried to argue that William might have been lying on all counts, but that seemed unlikely to me. Many of the facts gleaned in the interview correlated with known information or his own knowledge, after all.  
   
After a long session with Griselda, to which I was not invited, I was allowed to go back to London and my work. I was quite dreading facing my colleagues again, but Rupert assured me they knew nothing. Sanjev was gone, of course. Rupert had performed a disinvite spell on my flat, so he’d had to fend for himself. I tried half-heartedly to find him, but had no luck. Well, to be quite honest, I didn’t miss him.  
   
I got to see quite a bit of Rupert. He seems to be a rising star in the Council now. Mr. Travers and the old guard must be losing ground. He helped me set up a research program in liaison with the University of Bristol, department of Life Studies. Yes, unprecedented, I know, but they have of course a vast amount of experience and a whole methodology of studying wild creatures. It was huge fun to show the Fellow around some of my former haunts – the poor man was never so scared in his life, I’m convinced, although he seems to be quite renowned for his work on lions.  
   
Rupert is really a very charming man, I had begun to realize in Devon, and what can I say? Our relationship progressed in a very satisfactory way. He often does not wear tweed, and is quite a good and considerate lover, although I must admit I still dream of those smooth marble white abs and gorgeous cheekbones. And the huge penis. I don’t tell Rupert that, of course. It would only hurt his feelings.  
   
I know this is an interlude in my life. I will find evidence on the redemption of vampires, or lacking that, what makes William the Bloody so unique. I need that knowledge before I face him again. And I will. I think of myself now as working undercover. Everything I say and do must be above reproach and innocuous. My true goal is covered with layers and layers of quite innovative research, even if I say so myself, and I don’t think anyone in the Council is equipped to see through it. Not even Rupert.  
   
The statue had to go of course. I put it in storage. Its time would come….


	3. Meeting him again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia has an unexpected encounter.
> 
> Timeline: S6, 2002, during Villains and after Grave

When I woke up, I noticed that Rupert was already out of bed. The spring sunshine was pouring merrily through gaps in the curtains, and it was with less trouble than usual that I got up and shuffled to the shower. Rupert’s flat is in one of these lovely Georgian terraces they have here in Bath, looking out over the park and the hills. If you stretch your neck on his balcony you can just see Royal Crescent, mercifully empty of tourists at this time of day. It was Saturday, and we were going to visit Glastonbury Tor today, so I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.  
   
I padded to the kitchen and found Rupert, still in his ratty dressing gown, telephoning frantically while stuffing down soggy slices of jam and bread in his mouth at the same time. Oh-oh. With a sinking feeling I turned on the kettle. I had a feeling there was not going to be a walk to the Tor today. I caught a few words he was saying and realized he was talking to Griselda, from the coven. Something was up, apparently. He finished the call and put the phone down with a clatter. He sighed deeply and went on with his breakfast.  
   
“What is it, Rupert?” I said. “Can I help?”  
   
He turned a very troubled gaze at me. “It’s Willow.” At my questioning look: “Miss Rosenberg. Griselda and her circle felt a huge surge of magic last night, and they need me to help them. She’s not in control of it, it’s far too much for any untrained witch to handle, and they are sure something dire is in the wind. I’m sorry, dear girl, no hiking and shopping for us. I’m off to Griselda’s now, and then I immediately have to catch the earliest flight to Los Angeles.”  
   
I helped him pack and sent him off on his quest, a gallant ageing knight. I felt a pang of regret at the limits of our relationship. His true loyalty lay with his surrogate children, especially that Slayer. I’d always known that, and would have minded more if I hadn’t behaved the same; after all, my priority would always be William. We were fond of each other, and seemed to spend a lot of time together, but I didn’t think, somehow, that any more than that would come of it.  
   
Rupert promised to ring me at the earliest opportunity. He did ring from Heathrow, which was quite sweet. Thank God I was still in Bath, although on the point of leaving for London. I thought I’d get in a moment or two of in depth research, with the Council and the Circle in turmoil like that. I felt a great and guilty relief at being on my own all weekend. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that, really. A nasty little suspicion crept into my mind: surely it couldn’t be that Giles was keeping an eye on me for the council? I didn’t want to think that he would do that, and I didn’t think it. But still.  
   
*******  
   
I’d chosen the meeting place to be as public as possible, for safety. And where better than on one of London’s busiest street corners, chockfull of European and Transatlantic tourists staring at us, hoping we were real natives? They’d hardly notice that only one of my little group was human – I mean me. And we were all British, at least. Vampires do not congregate to big cities for nothing; it’s a huge advantage to be anonymous, and to be surrounded by such masses that an observer could never tell from whom the occasional odd vibe was originating.  
   
I fugued into an exciting academic venue for a moment. How had vampires managed in a time when there were no big cities? Truly big cities were a comparatively recent thing, say a couple of centuries old. Ancient Athens and Rome were villages compared to modern London. Any stranger would have been completely noticeable. I wrenched my attention back to the business at hand: interviewing modern day vampires.  
   
As I sat there in the pub on the corner of St. Martin’s Lane, watching the theatre crowd flocking in, I felt quite hopeless. What’s the point of personality retention in vampires if there is no personality to begin with? I looked at the young couple sitting in front of me. Indistinguishable from any other pair of young Brits. She, short, pale, overbite and huge bosoms, her fat thighs bulging out of the trendy boots; he, short, pale, skinny, his Adam’s apple moving convulsively the whole time, as he stared at some point below my chin. I couldn’t tell if it was my carotid arteries or my breasts.  
   
“Alright,” I said slowly. “What did you want to be before you were bitten?”  
   
“Dunno,” he said, shrugging. Wonderful. Only the tenth time he’d said that, in answer to my questions. He’d been a bank clerk before, he’d told me that much, and been laid off the day before he got turned. She’d been a shop assistant at Top Shop (she said; not that I believed a word of it; I don’t think they sell sizes above fourteen in Top Shop, and the shop girls are all young and slender), and had followed him in vampire-dom. They had no idea what they really were, hadn’t been taught, had no idea how to spend eternity. How depressing. If I ever became a vampire, I’d bloody well set out to conquer the world or die in the attempt. Mediocrity is always boring, whether in humans or demons.  
   
I grimly worked through my whole questionnaire, in spite of feeling that, although statistically everything counts I suppose, there wasn’t much to interest me in this interview. I’d read so much material in the Council Archives on all these fascinating, larger than life Vampire characters (one can’t call them heroes), and apart from William I’d yet to meet one who was even halfway interesting. It must be me, working the bottom of the pyramid. Thousands are turned, few manage to survive longer than couple of decades, let alone centuries, and fewer were Masters or had a calling to do interesting things to the world. New ideas began germinating in my brain. I shouldn’t interview all these random vampires, who hadn’t yet made a name and maybe never would! I should do a survey of known masters and broach them in their lairs or flats or whatever. If I had, say, a Slayer, or an experienced field agent as a partner I was sure I could find out the most wonderful data.  
   
I finished the transaction for the evening and watched the two vampires shuffle and waddle off respectively. They’d told all – well, sigh, bloody nothing – for a tenner. Pathetic or what? I decided to do some window shopping on my way home. My council stipend isn’t that big, and I tend to look at just about every piece of clothing on sale in the whole of London before buying anything, and I really needed some summer clothes. A linen suit, the summer version of tweed, sandals…  
   
I was walking through Neal Street, thinking of popping down to Covent Garden Centre to check if  the boots I'd coveted were on sale yet, when I saw an oddly familiar figure pop out of the underground exit at the corner. I stared after it, at first not knowing why the man had caught my attention, when I saw his profile for a moment! My heart stood still. It was Him! My William here in London! Why on earth? Shouldn’t he be in Sunnydale, assisting the slayer in whatever crisis Rupert was over there for?  
   
I followed him, of course. He wasn’t wearing his duster, and his hair looked odd. It was a mass of curls, with dark roots beginning to show. He looked smaller, no longer propelling his body down the street with that arrogant swagger, but walking head down, with hunched shoulders.  
   
He rounded the corner and went into one of the pubs. I hesitated for a moment before following him. Would he recognize me? It had been more than a year, after all, and it was a safe bet he'd not been thinking as much of me as I of him…Besides I was wearing jeans and contact lenses, and nobody ever recognized me. I went in.  
   
He was standing at the bar, having just ordered a lager, and was paying the barman with lots of small coins. I'd heard of the eating and drinking habits from Rupert, but hadn’t really thought about how a vampire would acquire the money to pay for them. Must be difficult. Or they would just steal, most likely. When I entered and sat down at a small table his head went up and his eyes stared straight into mine. He frowned for a few seconds and then turned away again. Phew. He was a really sharp observer, he'd noticed me immediately, and it was pure luck that he didn’t remember who I was exactly.  
   
I was rummaging in my bag for my purse, which always migrates to the farthest corner, when I saw black clad legs stand at my table and heard his voice asking if the seat was taken. My hands froze and I looked up at him. Oh God. The blue eyes were still as divine and penetrating as ever, and a slight smile played around the full lips. When I did nothing but stammer and stare he sat down anyway.  
   
"Long time no see, um…?"  
   
"L-Lydia," I stuttered, still unable to tear my eyes away from his face. Mmm. The lips. The nose. The eyes. The sexy scar. My eyes travelled downwards. Those big sure hands, which knew exactly where to give a woman the most pleasure. I felt a hot flush rise and with an effort willed my eyes back to his face.  
   
He was sitting very still, looking at me patiently. The patience gave me a slight chill, somehow. He hadn't struck me as a patient man before, and this stillness seemed unnatural. He was different, utterly different. The predatory vibe was not in evidence, his whole stance and attitude seemed changed since our first meeting.  
   
My curiosity won over my embarrassment. "What are you doing in London?” I asked. "You’re different!"  
   
A very slight twitch of the lips. "Passing through. Different? Perhaps."  
   
Well. Not very forthcoming. I kept on trying. "Shouldn’t you be in Sunnydale? Helping the Slayer?"  
   
This time I'd made him wince. Progress, in a way. He didn’t answer, though. I ploughed on anyway, having learned in all the interviewing that persistence usually pays off. People start to feel guilty if they refuse to answer too many of your questions, and eventually give away more than they intended to.  
   
"Are you going back to Sunnydale?"  
   
"Don't know yet."  
   
This issue was better abandoned. Okay. Enough other tacks available, weren’t there?  
   
"Did you visit your grave?"  
   
"What?" He nearly choked on his beer.  
   
"Your grave. Your own grave. It is in London, isn’t it?" Persistence, persistence!  
   
"Why the hell would I want to visit my own bloody grave?" he sputtered. "Now I remember you. The woman with the endless weird questions, who wrote a dissertation on me!"  
   
"Thesis."  
   
"Whatever."  
   
"You remember our, um, interview in my motel room?” I prodded hopefully.  
   
He looked at me oddly, and then I saw realization dawn. "You mean I should remember you coz I gave you a poke?"  
   
He shook his head. ”Sorry love. 'S not what that was about. Shouldn’t have done it, bloody well knew that, was just pumping you for information."  
   
My head might have known that, but the freezing sensation in my gut told me something different.  
   
"Do you have a place to stay?’ I asked. Don’t know why really, desperate not to let him get away, I suppose.  
   
A scarred eyebrow rose. "You offering?"  
   
"Well, yes.”  
   
He considered this for long moments. Since when had he become so deliberate and weighed every option? I really needed to ask him more questions. I thought I knew how to make him relax a bit more.  
   
At last he said, “What are you expecting in return for that favour?”  
   
I blushed. Damn his directness. “No strings attached,” I said hastily.  
   
He looked unconvinced, but also very tired, not flirtatious at all, and accepted the offer with a nod. It gave me an incredible thrill to travel home with him. Walking next to him to the underground entrance, waiting on the platform, sitting down on the seats together…I should know better, but it was so romantic, like taking a real boyfriend home! He was very silent, sitting in the shuddering noisy underground car with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. He looked awful in the bright lighting, pale (well, vampire), drawn, actually quite dead.  
   
I ached to take care of him, feed him up, coddle him, nurse him back to health, and then, um, yes, have lots of sex with him. He could drink my blood, use my bathroom, use me for whatever he chose. I vowed to break up with Rupert the moment I got home and it wasn’t night in Sunnyvale. This was the real deal.  
   
We walked the last few meters to my flat, still in silence. I opened the door, and invited him in. He stood uncertainly the hallway, looking too tired to move. I showed him Sanjev’s old room. He recoiled and said: “Is there another vampire living here?”  
   
Could he smell or otherwise sense Sanjev’s former presence?  
   
“No, no, “ I said hastily. “My friend’s brother used to stay here, after he was turned through no fault of his own, but he’s gone now.”  
   
He still hesitated, but went in after a bit. It struck me only now that he didn’t have any luggage.  
   
“Where are your clothes?” What he was wearing seemed about to fall apart, ancient jeans, formerly black, now grey with age, and torn everywhere, and an equally ancient black shirt, that was also ripped and stained.  
   
“This is it, love,” he said wearily.  
   
I rummaged in my cupboard and found him a toothbrush, a new grey T-shirt of my own, and some ancient trousers of Cyril’s, that still looked better than his own. I showed him the shower, and went to see if I still had some frozen blood in the fridge. I did, and made us a pot of tea while I was in the kitchen. When I returned with blood and tea, I found him in Sanjev’s room. He’d thrown himself on the bed, face forward, completely nude, and appeared to be sleeping. He must really have been exhausted. I put the two mugs on the bed stand and left him to it.  
   
I indulged in staring for a few moments only, revelling in the sight of his glorious nakedness in my flat. Those sculpted muscles, the firm buttocks with those lovely dimples on the side, the strong legs, thesweet boyish curls at his neck. It was all I could do to keep my hands off him, while at the same time noticing that he was rather thinner than before. Better get some sleep myself, I’d need to be fresh in the morning. Apart from wanting to look my best, I’d need all the energy I could muster to wrest some more information from the formerly chatty, but now so close-mouthed vampire.  
   
Damn William slept away the entire day. I cursed him for that, because it was Sunday, and tomorrow I’d have to work again. Late in the afternoon I heard him stir for the first time. I went in and offered to warm up the blood and make fresh tea. He asked me to knock first, next time. The arrogance had wasted no time returning! I fumed internally, a little more gratitude would have been nice, I thought, but I left him to shower alone.  
   
I'd been out buying clothes for him, his trademark dark jeans and a black sports shirt (I’d checked his ancient, quite nasty jeans for size). I'd gotten fresh blood as well, and when I sat him down in my tiny kitchen with a mug of blood and a glass of whisky, I was expecting a fruitful evening for me, preferably gleaning lots of new information, and something even more exciting on a personal level.  
   
He was looking a little better after his long sleep and the liters of pig and bovine blood I’d provided. I can’t say that he had bags under his eyes, like a human person would, but he looked pale and thin and there was something weary and wounded about him. I wondered how long he hadn’t fed and where he'd been. When I tried these questions to start the session off with, I got absolutely no answer in return.  
   
He sat there smoking, sipping his whiskey, showing nothing on that face of his that used to be so expressive, and saying nothing either.  
   
I got a little impatient. "Well?"I said sharply. ”I housed you, fed you and clothed you; surely some answers on innocuous questions wouldn’t be too much trouble?"  
   
Again the eyebrow rose, a trick I’d always envied since seeing a James Bond film as a young girl, but hadn’t managed yet.  
   
"No strings attached, I thought you said, pet?" he drawled, unmoved, and took a drag of his cigarette.  
   
I was stumped. "But…but...” I stuttered. "Common politeness would dictate that a guest…"  
   
He uttered a sharp bark of a laugh. "I haven’t felt compelled to be polite in a long while, and I've never been common."  
   
Well, that was helpful! I don’t usually lose my temper very quickly, but I remembered from our first encounter that I had suddenly slapped his face then as well, without any conscious decision on my part, it seemed. Straight through the spine to the hand, without interference of the brain. I was pretty near it right now. I had of course no way of getting him to talk at all. He seemed quite resistant to reasonable and civilized arguments. Perhaps an uncivilized one would make more of an impression.  
   
I went over to him and sat on his knee, putting my arms around his neck. He actually flinched and almost tipped me on the floor, but apparently he managed to restrain that first impulse. What was it that had changed him so much? I couldn't imagine the earlier version of William the Bloody being surprised or fazed by such an action from any woman - or man for that matter. He was more self-absorbed and less attentive somehow.  
   
I shifted about a little and played with the curls on his nape. He sighed and moved his head away from my hands.  
   
"What do you want?" he said tiredly.  
   
"I could make it worth your while answering a few questions…" I tried to be seductive, but I’m not sure it worked. The neon-lit atmosphere in my kitchen and his stoic expression weren’t exactly conductive to that kind of mood.  
   
"I'm abso-bloody-lutely overwhelmed. I'd get to put my hands on your lily-white body? How could I refuse? But I will anyway."  
   
He stood up and put me back on my feet. I was reminded of his strength again, it seemed to cost him no effort at all.  
   
"Goodnight, Lily" he said and went back to his room.  
   
I gritted my teeth and nearly stomped my feet as well. Damn him! Arrogant sarcastic bastard! I sloshed some whiskey in a glass with trembling hands and paced up and down the living room drinking it, trying to cool down and at the same time devising a battle plan. How did female spies do it? Or did that just happen in films? That night in California he’d been the one doing the seducing, and I’d been an absolute pushover. I'd no idea how to turn the tables. I’d tried to talk to girlfriends about it, but I must say they didn’t seem able to give any pointers. It was all just tales of either having to fend eager blokes off, or staid marital sex, or drunken, half remembered encounters on Saturday nights, again with the eager blokes. And to think of it, if they weren’t married they’d spend half the time bitching about not being able to find a guy, and the other half complaining that all men wanted was sex. No help there at all. No tips on having a man actually in your flat and having to persuade him to have sex with you. Pretty grim.  
   
Ah. There was my mistake! This was not a man, this was a vampire. Blood would be the key, not sex. Or perhaps a combination of the two…I quickly dressed in my vampire tart get-up, putting up my hair to get the bite-scars on better view. I was still sort of trembly, so I downed another drink for courage. Should I actually cut myself to get his attention? No, he’d be able to smell me anyway, wouldn’t he? Humans were food to him.  
   
I knocked, for politeness sake, but went in without waiting for an answer. He was lying on the bed, hands behind his back, contemplating the ceiling. He turned his head to look at me, a look of such resignation on his face that I almost gave up on the spot. But I persevered. This was too much of a unique occasion to let qualms keep me from my goal. I tried to sway when I walked up to the bed and knelt down on it, giving him a good view of my cleavage and scars.  
   
“Aren’t you tempted?’ I said. “Can’t you smell all that lovely blood pumping away in my veins? It’s just under the skin…Smell it, won’t you? Try a little taste, I know you want to.”  
   
I saw muscles in his cheeks clench and he swallowed. Yes! At last, a reaction. I reached up to the neckline of my corset and started to pull the zipper down, willing him to look at my breasts, not my face. I trailed a finger down my chest, between my breasts. Bad films and alcohol make a woman resourceful, I suppose.  
   
“Where do you prefer to bite? The neck? Or in the soft flesh of a woman’s breast?” I was getting quite excited by all this, I could smell myself. Embarrassing, usually, but to his nose this must be very evident, and enticing I hoped.  
   
“Do you want me to do the work?”  
   
I wiggled on his lap and put my neck in front of his mouth. He was still looking very human and put upon. I wished he’d vamp out, I knew how to deal with that. I could feel his erection growing, and tried to suppress a feeling of victory. Any moment now. I put my hand on his crotch and rubbed it, none too gently, as my vampire lovers had taught me. He arched his back and uttered a strangled groan.  
   
He turned his head away and let me go on rubbing his dick. I could feel his throat working where the flesh of our necks met. I had unbuttoned his fly and actually gotten a first grip on the coveted penis when suddenly I found myself lying upside down in a corner of the room. What had happened? I felt utterly confused. I untangled myself from the awkward position clumsily, my bottom landing on the floor with a thump. My upper arms hurt a lot, and my neck as well. He was standing next to the bed, chest heaving, hands gesticulating wildly.  
   
“What is it with you bitches? Are you all after this body? Well, I’m not your whore, so get out of here before I kill you!”  
   
He sounded absolutely furious, and near tears at the same time. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, but I’d enough sense to slink off and leave him be. I needed a few stiff drinks before I could even think of sleeping. I felt utterly humiliated and furious, but I could sense there was a little more going on than just not finding me attractive. I’d stumbled on some weak spot or old slight somehow. Issues.  
   
At last I went to bed and must have fallen asleep. When I finally woke up it was horribly late, I should have been at work already. First thing I did was check his room, and wouldn’t you know it, he was gone. Ungrateful bastard. I tried to revive myself by a hot shower and a cup of instant, although I usually drink tea in the morning, when the phone rang. Bugger. One of my officious colleagues, probably.  
   
“Yes?” I said grumpily into the speaker.  
   
“Lydia? Are you ill? I tried to ring you in the office, but they said you weren’t in yet.”  
   
Rupert! Just the man I needed for some answers. I had to be circumspect, though, didn’t want to end up in the coven again, wasting my time in home-spun dresses  
   
“Rupert, lovely to hear from you. No, the girls and I spent a little too much time in the pub last night, drinking away our sorrows. Feeling a bit hung-over, actually.” When lying, stick as closely to the truth as possible. It’s too hard to remember lies as it is.  
   
He clucked a bit about that, but as he was no stranger to the lure of alcohol, it didn’t spark any special interest in him. He told me he was coming home, as he put it, but would be bringing Miss Rosenberg. Apparently the little witch had tried to destroy the world with magic, and damn near succeeded. Griselda and the girls were going to straighten her out. I must say, I felt a lot of sympathy for Miss Rosenberg. Good on her, trying to destroy the world. Well, not really of course, but points for effort, I like a woman with ambitions. And having to face the sympathetic but sanctimonious witches after that- I really didn’t envy her.  
   
“How is the rest of the gang?” I enquired, trying to sound mildly interested, but in reality quite avid for info on my William, or Spike as they called him.  
   
“Unfortunately, Tara was killed by one of their enemies, and that set Willow off,” Giles said. “Buffy and the others are all quite well, if grieving.”  
   
Yes. Not very informative. “And the others? I mean there was quite a collection of odd characters in the group, witches, vampires...” I said innocuously.  
   
He hesitated. “People come and ago,” he said, evasively I thought. “Anya, Xander and Dawn are fine, as is Buffy.” Hm. He was extremely protective about Buffy, and it was odd he didn’t mention Spike. Had he and the Slayer fallen out or something? I was dying to know everything, but decided the phone wasn’t the right medium to wangle it out of him. Dinner, booze and discreet cleavage would be more likely to do the trick.  
   
“Will you be coming to London soon?” I asked.  
   
He hesitated again. “I might, but I’ll be quite busy in Devon in the near future. I’ll give you a call, all right?”  
   
Well! I was getting a brush-off, a gentle one this time, but two in the space of twelve hours was a bit much! I sat down in my kitchen after hanging up and had a good cry. Not that Rupert and I had been really in love with each other, but it still hurt. Was it me after all? Not attractive enough, or too academic and pushy? I felt extremely low and called my work to say I was ill, and went back to bed to nurse my hangover and my bruised self-esteem.  
   
I really indulged myself and had two days off. I’d gone to the video rental shop and rented a heap of vampire movies and rewatched them in bed, gorging on chocolate and French cheese. I went out and bought a frivolous summer dress and two pairs of shoes (Manolo Blahniks! on sale at Harvey Nicks, actually above my budget and quite impractical, but nothing gives a boost like new shoes).  
   
I finally started to feel a bit better and mentally reviewed my plans. The reunion with William I’d been envisaging went quite differently. I’d dreamed of meeting him again in a moonlit graveyard, filled to bursting with knowledge on vampires in general and him in particular, and impressing him with it so much, that he’d make love to me on the spot and we’d live happily ever after. I could see now that that might be an unrealistic scenario. I needed to rethink my strategy. It needed stronger measures, obviously.


	4. Sunnydale revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia Chalmers, female member of the Council Team, returns to Sunnydale, hoping to meet Spike again,
> 
> Timeline: S7, around ep 16/17, with flashbacks to fall

I woke up in a green-and-white painted hospital room, surrounded by beeping monitors and tubes filled with red and clear fluids. It took some time for me to comprehend that they were all connected to me. What on earth had happened? Had I been in a car accident? I didn’t really hurt, but I felt very drowsy and cotton-woolish. The last thing I remembered was the meeting at Council HQ. The rest of the evening was a blank. Vampire attack? With difficulty I willed my hand to check my neck, but I couldn’t feel new wounds.  
   
I remembered there had been a big meeting, and I was wearing my new grey gabardine suit. Mr. Travers was starting a speech on what was facing us when something happened.  
   
“Our fears have been confirmed. The First Evil has declared all out war against this institution, and its initial volleys have proved to be most effective. I, for one, think it's time we struck back.”  
Everyone had nodded in agreement.  
“Get me confirmations on all remaining operatives, “ Mr. Travers had continued. “I want visuals and tacticals -- highest alert. Get them here as soon as possible. Begin preparations for mobilization. Once we're accounted for, I want to be ready to move. We'll be paying a visit to the Hellmouth.”  
We were all looking at him grimly. He could do a passable speech, old Quentin could.  
“My friends, these are the times that define us. Proverbs, 24:6. "For by wise counsel, you shall make your war. Now let's get moving. We've got work to –“  
   
I couldn’t remember anything after that. Things had been really hotting up in Sunnydale. Mr. Travers had invited me to be on the crisis team, and it was a tremendous honour. I loved being asked; it meant I was really acquiring a reputation in the Council. Rupert had been around once or twice, preoccupied and tense. We’d occasionally seen something of each other since he’d returned with Miss Rosenberg, or Willow I should say, in tow. And now he was back in Bath again, and Willow in Sunnydale.  
   
I had been listening in unobtrusively to a conversation between Mr. Travers and another colleague.  
   
“We heard that the Aurelian vampire is back in Sunnydale? Will he stir up more trouble, or side with the enemy?” Mr. Travers enquired, as their distance from me decreased.  
   
“Hardly, my dear Quentin, hardly,” Nigel replied with a tight smile. “No reason to suspect he’s changed alliances.”  
   
“And I understand Miss Rosenberg will be returning as well to lend her assistance? Is she ready?”  
   
It reassured me that things had been stirring up before Willow’s return. More importantly, the vampire (who but my William?) was apparently back in Sunnydale, and his allegiance seemed in doubt. To my surprise, this bit of news hadn’t been mentioned by Rupert, last time we spoke on the phone. Didn’t his Slayer keep him up to date?  
   
There was an incredible amount of work to do, and it left precious little time for my new interests. It was as well that Rupert had made clear, delicately but definitely, that there was no chance of resuming our former semi-relationship. Well, yes, as if I hadn’t gotten the message already! But I would not have had the time. Mr. Travers had actually encouraged me to branch out into other demonic research, praising my innovative methods and daring insights, saying that they were just what the CoW needed. At last!  
   
   
A nurse came in. Thinking all these busy thoughts must’ve made me beep differently than before, because she was all fussy and asking how we were doing, like Holby Central, actually. What followed was indescribably tedious. Endless tests and checkups, embarrassing talks with a psychologist to ascertain I had all my marbles. I’m not sure I would fit into the narrow confines of their normality, but since I remembered my name, the year and who was PM, they declared me psychologically sound.  
   
I could live with being a bit gimpy for awhile, but I was appalled to hear I’d been in a coma for weeks. What a waste of time! Mummy and Pamela came by, of course, all teary and suddenly remorseful for not having been to see me as often as before. Well, mummy is getting on in age and Pamela has two kids! Not as if I expected them to drop by every weekend, or wanted them to, for that matter.  
   
A huge copper asked me dull and inane questions and it took a lot of prodding before he parted with some information on what had happened to me. I was deeply shocked. HQ blown up? By what or who? Not as if there was a vampire or demon resistance movement or anything! At first I couldn’t take in all the implications, as I lay there impatiently healing. No Council? No watchers left? Library gone? Did it mean I was out of a job, or that I suddenly had huge responsibilities and funds?  
   
Solicitors and notaries and their ilk came to talk to me about the CoW. There apparently were contingency plans, and as I was one of the few English Watchers so far identified who was still alive, and the only one who was conscious, I was the one who had all the power and resources at my command, at least for now. I’m sure it sped up the healing. I could do whatever I chose, start up a new Council of Watchers, or not. I rather thought I would. I could think of many ways to move the Council into the twenty-first century, and eradicate some of the more barbarian Slayer training practices and the rampant sexism and specieism. But first I needed a little compassionate leave to complete unfinished business in California.  
   
Lydia Chalmers, Head of Council. It had quite a ring to it. It was odd, most of my co-workers were dead, some of them had been friends or even lovers, and I didn’t seem to be able to feel very much about it at all. Perhaps it would hit me later. All I could think of was to become fit again and get myself to Sunnydale.  
   
**********  
   
I hadn’t slept at all on the flight, being far too excited by the prospect of seeing William again. This time I was a lot better prepared, and I was confident that things would go differently. I staggered out of my rental car in the hot air of Sunnydale. Driving on the right had been the death blow in my already overtired state. I registered and fell into bed half undressed. When I woke up it was dark. I had no idea of the time and had to turn on the telly to check the local time and date. I’d slept fourteen hours straight! This meant I still was on UK time, but that was no matter, since I planned to operate at night mostly.  
   
I went out into the tiny Sunnydale town centre and bought maps and other stuff. The Magic Box looked destroyed and abandoned. Rupert had never even mentioned that. The Sunnydale citizens walked around warily, like gazelles approaching the communal drinking pool in lion territory (I’d learnt a few things in my association with the Bristol Life sciences faculty!)  
   
The map showed me all the cemeteries in Sunnydale, a staggering amount for a small town. I planned to use the maps to observe the hunting patterns of William the Bloody and mark them down. I noted the phone numbers of real estate agents, and saw that there were a lot of relatively cheap properties for rent. Must‘ve had something to do with the town’s high mortality rate.  
   
The next day I rented a lovely property on Crawford Street, with a view of two cemeteries. It was quite the mansion, with a lot of Art Deco (or faux Art Deco, not my speciality) detailing. There were even chains attached to the wall, made one wonder what the former inhabitants had been up to.  
   
It had been chilly spring weather in England, but here it seemed full-blown summer. My linen suits were really different from what everyone else was wearing, so I went out and bought some summer clothes with the Council credit card. Ha! I was now completely disguised as an American, in my spangled low-slung jeans and flowered peasant top. It's very important to blend in with one’s surroundings when going under cover. I worried about the British white-ness of my skin, but dismissed it. I didn’t feel like taking the time to acquire tan. I’d only turn red anyway.  
   
The third night I struck lucky. I was sitting on top of a tomb, scanning the cemetery (Restfield) with my night vision binoculars when I heard sounds of a scuffle close by. I climbed down and folded up my lightweight aluminium ladder before sneaking in the direction of the fight. My William was there, fighting two or three Kanchen Junga demons at a time. Or it might have been Glarghk Guhl Kashma'niks, it was a bit dark to spot the tell tale differences. And the Slayer was around, too, helping him, probably.  
   
William dispatched the demons in a heroic and efficient manner, showing his fighting skills and toned body off to great advantage, and then went over to the Slayer, who wasn’t doing so well with her half dozen. Sloppy work. One could tell Rupert wasn’t around to train her.  
   
The Slayer finished off her last demon and helped William up. A chill wind must have struck up in the cemetery as I felt my skin contract in goose bumps. Something about their body language was off, something disturbing. They stood talking softly a few moments, and the Slayer checked a cut on William’s face, lingering unnecessarily, I thought. My sound amplification device conveyed their words to me.  
   
“Let me see that cut, Spike,” she said curtly.  
   
“I’m fine, Buffy, leave it,” William said softly, and picked her hand off his face. I applauded his restraint.  
   
“Back to the house of PMS,” the Slayer said morosely.  
   
“Best cure I know for that is…” William started to say but bit his lip and refused to go on, in spite of relentless prodding from the Summers’ chit.  
   
They walked off, and the Slayer slung her arm around his waist, overdoing the comradely thing a bit. I was sure he wasn’t that hurt and could walk under his own steam. Was she flirting with him? If so, Rupert had done a worse job than I would have thought. A Slayer should maintain proper distance from her chosen prey.  
   
While I was standing there, slack-jawed with lust and curiosity, I’d almost let them get away from me. I hurried after them, keeping my distance, keeping well into the shadows. I’d followed vampires before, of course, but it wouldn’t do to get overconfident. Those had been fledglings, and William the Bloody was about a hundred and twenty years older than them, and might well be able to sense me from hundreds of yards away. To my surprise they turned onto a suburban avenue, full of these quaint, typically American homes. I whipped out my map under a streetlamp and discovered we were heading for the Summers' house.  
   
What was that Slayer thinking of? We were talking William the Bloody here, the scourge of Europe! I could accept him knowing where she lived, as he’d been offering his help to her for some time, but I did hope she hadn’t actually invited him in her own house. If we’d known that she never would have passed that Slayer review we did in 2001! My heart sank when I saw them going in the door of 1630 Revello Drive. He held the door open for her. I might be catching a cold, I thought, I was shivering.  
   
I stood there for hours, and he never came out again. All the lights were off, too. Just before dawn I gave up and trudged back to my rented house on Crawford Street. I felt quite deflated, How to explain the peculiar behaviour? I needed more information. I wished the Council files on informants still existed. I didn’t have time to suss out possible candidates here in Sunnydale. Damn. Now I was the Council, and had no other way to gather recent information than by my own actions.  
   
The next day I rented another house, across the road from the Slayer, strictly as an observation post. My other preparations were still better done at Crawford Street, for its quiet and distant location. I hired a firm to put up cameras and so on, because I wanted to be able to watch them online from the mansion, and not be seen hanging about on Revello Drive all the time. After all, William might remember me.  
   
The camera revealed an improbable amount of people living there, including, of all people, Rupert! I was so happy to have installed the camera; he’d have spotted me right away. I was also quite glad to see him alive, more so than I had expected. I might have harboured a tiny grudge against him for the breaking off thing, but I forgave him on the spot. There were lots of young girls, one of them the Slayer’s sister, the others potential slayers perhaps, as I saw William and Miss Summers training them. Miss Rosenberg was there, on the wagon one hoped, Mr. Harris and Miss Jenkins (whom I now knew to be a former Vengeance Demon, something Rupert had seen fit to keep from the council at first, regrettable behaviour), and an unknown unprepossessing young man. And William, who must be living there as well. Chained up in the cellar, I presumed. Anything else would be utter folly.  
   
William, or Spike, as I heard everybody call him quite familiarly, often took out the Potential slayers, with Miss Summers in tow. Training them, one supposed. A wise precaution, as I knew only too well what they were up against. However, it might not help them in the end, and I hurried with my preparations as much as I could. But there were lunar and menstrual cycles to consider, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance.  
   
At last the first of the auspicious days dawned. The Slayer and my vampire went hunting together, and I took that as a lucky sign. They left the house by the front door, chatting amicably, holding hands – it couldn’t be, I thought indignantly – what was that girl thinking of? I determinedly put the unwelcome thoughts out of my mind. I observed the route they took from afar, and then hurried aback to the mansion. After undressing, I put the bowl of by now rather whiffy menstrual blood in the middle of the pentagram, closed the magic circle and started chanting. It was incredibly exciting to feel the fabric of the world twist and tear and when the demon came through I was positively trembling with anticipation. And fear. I’d only recently started acquiring these demon handling skills for this very purpose, and I loved it that my plan appeared to be coming together.  
   
It was a creature of dark, whirling energy, shot through with bolts of magma red. It’s quite dangerous, unless constrained by the right rituals, and it will do pretty much anything for a bowl of menstrual blood. What it wants it for no one's ever been able to find out. Blood wouldn’t feed an energy creature, after all. I commanded it to find William and to take him to me. And not to harm the Slayer in the process, we’d need her to save the world on occasion. A portal opened and the demon reached through it with an enormous paw, grabbed something wildly struggling and dumped it on the floor near the manacles.  
   
“Chain him up,” I commanded. The thing did as ordered. I told it to await further orders. It folded itself into its own dimension, except for a huge ear that remained hovering over the pentagram. I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. These summonings were an enormous drain on one’s energy, and I hadn’t done one very often yet.  
   
William the Bloody looked slightly singed and battered, but that didn’t bother me. His vampire healing would take care of that in no time. I fastened his legs to the wall as well, and checked him over carefully, to see if anything special was amiss, unbuttoned his shirt, and, well, relished the sight of him. He was looking so much better than last summer in London. He looked well fed and sleek, hair neatly bleached and slicked back, wearing newish clean black clothing.  
   
As the moment was approaching I was getting quite nervous. Third time lucky, I hoped. Now we should have a different kind of talk. One with me in the seat of power, instead of the beggar for scraps, and a talk that would lead to quite a different outcome. My vampire was still out, hanging limply in his shackles. It made him look quite vulnerable and young. I did many of the things I had been dreaming of for months, no, years, by now. I ran my hand though his curls, felt his cheekbones and his mouth, and kissed the luscious lips. He was cold and unresponsive, but, well, no news there.  
   
I was slowly working my way downwards, reveling in the feel of his ivory skin, the firm springy musculature underneath. What a wonderful moment Drusilla had chosen to turn him, at the peak of his manhood, not a callow youth anymore, but old enough to give definition to his face and not yet sagging, wrinkling, balding or growing furry all over.  
   
I was so busy unbuttoning his fly that I must have missed him waking up. His stomach muscles jerked against me, breaking my concentration. I looked up at him and my heart ached to see the blue eyes look so lost and confused. I saw the oddest expression pass over his face, a bit like pain and resignation combined.  
   
“Back here again?” William mumbled, hanging his head. “All a dream. She never rescued me. Still here.”  
   
His chin rose and he visibly pulled himself together and looked at me in defiance.  
   
“Do with me what you will!” Yes, that was the plan.  
   
”I’ll never betray her. She will come for me.” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Was he reliving some scene from the past?  
   
I tugged at his trousers, still looking at that marvelous face, and a frown creased his forehead. Lucky him. He’d never need Botox.  
   
“You can touch me?” he said, sounding surprised. ”You can’t be the First, then. You’re that daft bint from England again! Lily? Libby? What the hell do you want now?”  
   
“What does it look like?” I said playfully, toying with the disappointingly limp but still quite appealing penis.  
   
His jaw clenched and he rolled his eyes. He’d clearly been in California for quite some time. He shook his head and took a couple of deep breaths. I observed it interestedly. Human mannerisms again. Would he have relearned these facial expressions by his recent association with humans, or were they a remnant of his human life still? There were no data on these habits, but I for one couldn’t see a Victorian gentleman, if that was what he had been, rolling his eyes. I could see a monograph before my mind’s eye.  
   
“Why am I here? Why pick this place?” he said.  
   
I didn’t understand. Had he been here before, perhaps?  
   
He must have seen my lack of understanding, and shook his head again. “Never mind. Why don’t you untie me, so we can talk this over?”  
   
“Yah, right,” I said scornfully. “You’d just walk away. I know you can’t harm me, because of the chip, but you could use your thrall! Certainly not. You’ll do fine where you are.”  
   
He got a certain glint in his eye that I couldn’t place, but rather liked. My heart sped up and I could feel my throat constrict.  
   
“Livia…why don’t you come here and look me in my eyes? I know you want to…”  
   
I smacked him firmly. “It’s Lydia, and I said no thrall. I’ll untie you when we’ve come to an agreement.”  
   
My back and knees started to ache from the kneeling and standing on the hard stone floor so I had the demon magic him, shackled, onto the big bed in one of the main rooms in the mansion. He looked even better, stretched out on the bed, dressed only in his unbuttoned black jeans. I climbed on top of him, straddling him, and rubbed and stroked the magnificent stomach muscles. He arched away from my hands, but I took it as a good sign that he reacted physically.  
   
“Stop mucking about with me for a moment and talk to me,” William or Spike said with an exasperated edge in his voice. ”What do you want a vampire for? Sacrifice me to the demon over there?”  
   
"Um, no!” I protested. "I want you. I want you for yourself; you’re not just any vampire to me!”  
   
“Ta ever so,” he said sarcastically. “You need the vampire with a soul? For what?”  
   
“Angelus? No, I…” And then it hit me. He’d meant himself. Dear me. That was a pretty significant piece of information. How on earth had he gotten a soul? Gypsy curse? It explained a lot about his changed behaviour. I sat back on my heels and regarded him with fresh interest; I mean interest apart from his body and personality. I was even surer now that I needed him by my side,  
   
“Well, “I said finally, “That’s very interesting, and will make you an even more compatible companion.”  
   
“Companion? To what? To who?”  
   
“Whom,” I corrected automatically, and then wished I hadn’t. Never makes for popularity.  
   
“To me!” I said. “I want you to be my consort. I love you. I’m head of the council of watchers now, and we would be very powerful together.”  
   
His eyes nearly popped out their sockets, and then his head sank back into the pillow and he looked up at the ceiling for a moment with clenched jaws. Huh. Subtract points for lack of perception. What else did he think I had in mind? Then his demeanour notably changed. His whole body language softened and loosened. My heart lurched in response and I reached towards him hopefully.  
   
“I’m sorry, Lydia,” he said, sounding sincere and regretful. Now he got my name right? “I’m not available.”  
   
I got that unpleasant icy curdling feeling in my gut again, and sighed deeply to release some of the tension.  
   
“Yes, well, it would be one thing or another, wouldn’t it? Either you’re a vampire without a soul and you can’t love, or you’re in a relationship with someone else. That’s why you’re in chains, instead of us sitting together in your mother’s parlour with me asking for your hand.” I realized I was taking the male role in this fantasy. “I’m not going to take a no this time, is that clear?”  
   
He looked confounded. He opened his mouth to protest more, but I didn’t think talking was going to progress the negotiations any. I ordered the demon to shut off his speech. The damn thing couldn’t comply; apparently its powers were limited to the less complex physical actions. I simply hadn’t had the time to acquire the skill to summon the more subtle demonic forms.  
   
Spike shut up all by himself anyway and looked at me for a long time. “All right then,” he said, voice deeper and darker. “I can see you’ve got the power here, pet. Might as well give in graciously…”  
   
His voice went straight to my gut, and I exulted at his acknowledgement of my power over him. At last! He tilted his head in that charming, mischievous way and smiled at me. His surrender melted me into a steaming puddle in his lap. He fluttered his lashes at me and gave a little wiggle with his hips. The man knew how to get things going!  
   
I started licking the delectable abs, delighting in the feel of the thin smooth skin stretched over taut muscle. His skin tasted like a bit like apple-pie, peppery and spicy and yet sweet. I tried to remember what his penis had tasted like, two years ago, and couldn’t. Was apple-pie vampire-taste or Spike-taste? Never had felt inclined much to lick vampires’ bellies before. My tongue followed the hills and valleys on his stomach, slowly traveling down, like gravity, to the hollow below his hipbone and down the crease of his hip, where it disappeared into his black jeans.  
   
My body was starting up a little moisturizing all on its own, and I wanted him to rip off my clothes and give me back some of the touching he did so well. But of course I’d tied up his hands. It had seemed such fun at first, the whole bondage and helpless prisoner thing, but I really wanted someone who reciprocated what I was doing to him.  
   
I stretched out a hand to the manacle on his left hand. I’d seen him smoke with that hand, he must be a lefty. Must have been hard in his youth, people were forced to write with their right hands then, lefties were punished and ostracized.  
   
“Will you be good?”  
   
“I’m trying very hard to be good,” he said with a depth of sincerity in his voice that I couldn’t place, but made me really believe him.  
   
I untied his hand. I expected him to grab my breast or bum, but he curled his hand against my cheek, stroking it with his knuckles.  
   
“Why don’t your relax, Lydia?” Chocolate voice. Butterscotch voice. Fudge. “I can feel you’re tense, why don’t you let me calm you down, make you all lazy and comfortable, you must have been working so hard, just let go…”  
   
He stroked my hair and my back, and I uncoiled on his chest like a strand of taffy, made limp by the gentle caresses and the sound of his voice reverberating against my ear.  
   
“I know what it’s like, Lydia,“ he said softly. “To love hopelessly and not be loved back. And I’ve tried forcing it from the woman I love. But it didn’t work. It turns against you and makes you less. To love means wishing the best for the one you love.”  
   
My brains had in no way processed these words yet, but tears were starting to flow from my eyes. Why was I crying? I felt as if I’d lost something very precious, but what could it be? I was lying here with the man I loved, who was talking to me in that golden-brown voice, stroking my cheek and my hair, why should I cry?  
   
“I’m very flattered to be loved by a powerful, intelligent woman like you, Lydia, but I love someone else, and always will.”  
   
This time it really penetrated all the way into my brain and my gut, and I sobbed my heart out on his god-like pectorals. When I‘d become a bit more quiet, I unchained him.  
   
“I’m such a fool,“ I said bitterly. “Why didn’t I get before this that it wouldn’t work? That you’re interested in someone else?”  
   
Spike didn’t answer, but looked at me so gently, from those heavenly blue eyes, that I could almost see the soul in him. This was indeed not the amoral scamp who’d cheerfully fucked me for information and had forgotten me in the next moment. This was a real person, someone with real, serious, deep feelings, and it made my loss even more painful. I wished I was the lucky woman who was loved by him.  
   
“What weird things did you do to get her to love you?”  
   
He looked at me askance. “I won’t tell if you’re going to write it all down later. Which you would, right?”  
   
Well, yah. “Did you get the soul for her?” I asked, still hiccuping a little.  
   
“Yes,” he said.  
   
“Amazing, “I sighed. “She must be so happy now.” Lucky, lucky woman.  
   
Something bitter and hopeless crossed his face.  
   
“You too? “I said tremulously. I patted his hand. Who could resist this soulful alabaster-wrapped package of vampire goodness? She must be a stronger woman than most.  
   
“Well, it does make you a good person to cry on,“ I said wistfully.  
   
“Don’t need a soul to comfort a woman, pet. Might need one to know when to stop comforting, though. And I do feel a tad responsible, you know. If I hadn’t shagged you, kidnapping me would never have occurred to you, I wager.”  
   
Spike made a little regretful grimace at me, and put his arms around me and said more soothing words. He even fished a package of tissues from his jeans and offered one to me.  
   
“What the hell does a vampire need hankies for?” I said, smiling through my tears.  
   
“Bloody useful in a house full of women, love,” he said with a wry smile in response.  
   
“Huh,” I said, and as any chance of romance was gone anyway, blew my nose long and loudly and satisfyingly.  
   
“What about coming back to England with me, not, you know, but working for the Council?” I offered. “I could pay you pretty well!”  
   
He shook his head. “Couldn’t leave here. Thanks for the offer, but I’ve distrusted these Council wankers for a century, not gonna work for them now.”  
   
“Don’t be thick!” I said, exasperated. “I *am* the Council. You would be the council, no reason to distrust yourself!“  
   
Suddenly I heard a loud, crashing noise, and Spike’s face changed completely. It lit up with the most wonderful happy smile I’d ever seen on his face, and I remember being puzzled by its significance while turning my head to find the source of the noise.  
   
The Slayer. Who else, come to rescue her comrade-in-arms. She stood there, five feet nothing, wearing her silly heels and righteous expression, glowering at me with a big axe in her hand. Sorry, Miss Summers, he rescued himself. Didn’t need you. Her gaze softened when she spotted Spike and understanding came crashing down in my head. Right. I should have seen that before, but hadn’t wanted to. Of course Miss Undersized and Undereducated would get the cool guy. Demon called to demon, apparently. I wondered if Rupert knew about that, the age-old attraction between Slayers and Vampires, it was after all knowledge that I had only gained because of my illicit visits to the library. I put another item in my mental to-do list: Engage librarian to catalogue library.  
   
Yet another person came running through the ruined door, and shouted an order to my demon. The demon hesitated. Blast. Just like Rupert to show up at the most unlikely moment. He casually rubbed out the pentagram and said a few words, and the demon dissipated into nothing. If I’d known Rupert would show I wouldn’t have used Demon 1 from the Beginners’ Guide to Demonic Summoning, Council edition. Bugger, bugger, bugger. I had sort of not minded too much when just talking to Spike, but now there was an audience I sagged back down on the bed and felt my face freeze up.  
   
“Lydia? What on earth…?” Rupert said in astonishment.  
   
I felt a little ashamed. He must have thought I was dead. I heard Rupert persuade the Slayer not to chop my head off, as I was human, a member of the Council, and a friend of his. That was sweet of him, to still count me as a friend. Then there was worse.  
   
“Come on, Buffy, get off your high horse. I, of all people, know that love makes you do the wacky. Let her off the hook, she probably feels bad enough as it is,” Spike said.  
   
Spike was defending me. The last thing I wanted from him was charity. Rupert walked up to me and first took me in a crushing hug.  
   
“Dear girl. It’s wonderful that you are still alive. Why wasn’t I told? And why don’t you tell me what all this was about, my dear? Why did you kidnap Spike? He’s on our side! Not still tagging and dissecting vampires, are you?”  
   
Dear Rupert. I’d better not tell all. I felt I could count on Spike to keep mum about my moment of insanity.  
   
“Dissecting?” Spike said, horror in his voice.  
   
The Slayer stomped up to me and said: “No dissecting of the vampire, is that understood? Nobody messes with my -  vampire!”  
   
She glared at me from under the brassy locks with her green eyes and I swear she almost growled. I flicked a glance at Spike, and he stood staring at her with such a possessive proud glow that it made me unwell. I nodded. I was probably safer if she thought I’d wanted to do an autopsy on him than the truth.  
   
Some days later, I was driving my rental car down the highway to LAX. After some discussion, Rupert and I had felt that I could better serve our combined interests by reforming the Council of Watchers based in London. I was feeling relatively cheerful for someone with a broken heart as I drove down the busy road. I spotted a sign for the exit to downtown LA. LAX was straight on. The memory of an address popped in my head out of nowhere. Angel investigations, Hyperion Hotel, it said. I had two hundred meters to make my decision. Turn off now for the other souled vampire, or get on the plane for home. Hardest decision I ever made.  
   
THE END


End file.
